"Then I made a grievous mistake," she explained to the quartette. "It is all my fault, Mr. Trotter. I brought disaster upon you when I only intended to sound your praises. I told him that nothing could suit me better than to have you pop up out of the bushes, just for the pleasure it would give me to see him run for home as fast as he could go. It made him furious."
Smith-Parvis Jr. proceeded to give her "what for," to use his own words. In sheer amazement, she listened to his vile insinuations. She was speechless.
"And here am I," he had said, toward the end of the indictment, "a gentleman, born and bred, offering you what this scurvy bounder cannot possibly give you, and you pretend to turn up your nose at me. I am gentleman enough to overlook all that has transpired between you and that loafer, and I am gentleman enough to keep my mouth shut at home, where a word from me would pack you off in two seconds. And I'd like to see you get another fat job in New York after that. You ought to be jolly grateful to me."
"If I am the sort of person you say I am," she had replied, trembling with fury, "how can you justify your conscience in letting me remain for a second longer in charge of your little sisters?"
"What the devil do I care about them? I'm only thinking of you. I'm mad about you, can't you understand? And I'd like to know what conscience has to do with that."
Then he had coolly, deliberately, announced his plan of action to her.
"You are to stay on at the house as long as you like, getting your nice little pay check every month, and something from me besides. Ah, I'm no piker! Leave it all to me. As for this friend of yours, he has to go. He'll be out of a job tomorrow. I know Carpenter. He will do anything I ask. He'll have to, confound him. I've got him where he can't even squeak. And what's more, if this Trotter is not out of New York inside of three days, I'll land him in jail. Oh, don't think I can't do it, my dear. There's a way to get these renegade foreigners,—every one of 'em,—so you'd better keep clear of him if you don't want to be mixed up in the business. I am doing all this for your own good. Some day you'll thank me. You are the first girl I've ever really loved, and—I—I just can't stand by and let you go to the devil with my eyes shut. I am going to save you, whether you like it or not. I am going to do the right thing by you, and you will never regret chucking this rotter for me. We will have to be a little careful at home, that's all. It would never do to let the old folks see that I am more than ordinarily interested in you, or you in me. Once, when I was a good deal younger and didn't have much sense, I spoiled a—but you wouldn't care to hear about it."
She declared to them that she would never forget the significant grin he permitted himself in addition to the wink.
"The dog!" grated Thomas Trotter, his knuckles white.
M. Mirabeau straightened himself to his full height,—and a fine figure of a man was he!